Rot Within Us: Our Refusal to Confront Our Social Problems is Destroying Us

The other day, I visited my dentist. The filling I had in one of my teeth had split in half and part of it had fallen out, for the second time in about 18 months. When I sat on the chair of doom and my dentist examined the offending tooth, he said to me that he could attempt to fill it again, but he would merely be patching over a “ticking time bomb”. As a result the tooth was subsequently removed to prevent further pain and rot.

Your teeth are one of the part of your body that you genuinely fear to lose. Not only does losing them prevent you from being able to eat properly, you no longer have that pearly white smile, to brighten up someone else’s day. However the teeth are one of the things that we have the greatest ability to look after within our body. You can’t directly clean your lungs or your heart in the same way that you can clean you teeth. Yet many people seem to be lured in to a false sense of security that if they ignore teeth issues, it will be okay. The problem will sort itself.

Can you imagine if you were diagnosed with a form of cancer (that was medically treatable) and you decided to just ignore the problem and hope that the cancer would cure itself? How long would it take before the cancerous cells brought you to your death? If you were to take the approach that the cancer was targeting you for some nefarious reason: that you had ginger hair, or that you were under 5’8″, you would demand that something was done, because you would feel victimised. We know that cancer does not show preference. It does not have favourites. There are cancers that are hereditary and are more likely to show in a family’s descending generations. However cancer does not choose who to affect.

All we can do is attempt to live our lives as healthily as our body allows us to and watch for the danger signs. Like with teeth. We need to undertake correct dental care, brushing regularly and minimising sugary and acidic food stuffs in our diet. We cannot go about blaming someone when eventually we need to sit in the chair of doom for dental care, if we failed to do what would have helped us.

I mentioned my dentist using the phrase “ticking time bomb” at the beginning of this piece. I would argue that this is an accurate description of aspects of the social and political landscape in our society at the moment.

Free speech is being eroded left and right under the pretence of protecting people’s feelings and to minimise offence being caused to individuals. Specific words and phrases are on a daily basis being identified as possibly “triggering” to people who may feel victimised by their utterance.

Once popular and prevelant opinions are being demonised due to a change in the prevelant narrative being pushed by certain individuals and groups in our society. Religious values and practices are in general being eroded and discouraged in society, with the excuse that they are intolerant towards minority groups.

This extends to the point where a person can simply lose their job, because an individual may take offence at something said or highlighted, which is viewed out of context. For example:

An employee at Wilfrid Laurier University, Lindsay Shepherd, made headlines last year for very strange and controversial reasons. She was brought in front of the university board, after showing a clip of well known Clinical Psychologist, Jordan Peterson, debating on the topic of the use of gender pronouns. She was accused of creating a toxic environment in the classroom and risked harming other students as a result. Unfortunately for the university, she recorded the entire meeting and subsequently released the footage online. This of course went viral and highlighted the somewhat hysterical insularity that is being pushed within education establishments. Shepherd has since been exonerated of any wrong doing, however her reputation has forever been tarnished in education circles, for simply showing someone’s point of view.

The current trend in society seems to be reaching a dangerous crescendo at the moment.

Equality among the sexes, races and social groups has never been more mainstream. Yet it is being tackled with more and more intolerant methods. Jobs are being lost, reputations are being destroyed and individuals being charged, for doing as little as failing to distance one’s self from an unpopular opinion.

“Positive discrimination” is being used to overcome the lack of minority groups in the work place, at the expense of hiring the best qualified person for the job.

Media groups are pushing narratives that it is no longer acceptable to marry within your own race group and that you should not refuse to date someone simply because you do not find them attractive.

Currently, people who are caught in the middle of this social thunderstorm are silenced simply by fear of being ostracised from the majority of society. They are unwilling to rock the metaphorical apple cart for fear of being publicly demonised and shunned. Yet I feel that we may be close to a point in this social experiment where people who are not at the extreme ends of the political spectrum decide that enough is enough. They decide that the ever growing tyrannical control regime that is being ushered in by the political and ruling elite, must end.

At some point, the decaying tooth that is being filled and covered over again and again, will eventually need to be pulled out, to stop the decay from spreading further and causing widespread pain.

The pendulum of the political clock is swinging in one direction at the moment. How long till it reaches the end of its swing and change begins to take place?